YOU might think that the firepower required to secure a second consecutive British National Hunt trainers’ title would quieten Willie Mullins artillery on home soil, but it was still a season of remarkable success domestically in 2024/’25 - even if not quite as dominant as 12 months earlier.
For the 19th time in his career, the all-conquering trainer was crowned champion in Ireland, driven by winning 21 of the 35 Grade 1 contests run here over the course of the season. While there were a number of star performances in that haul, none will live as long in the memory as Galopin Des Champs’ hat-trick sealing success in the Irish Gold Cup in February. The reception as he returned to the Leopardstown winner’s enclosure was something akin to the fabled Danoli days of old.
One of the marvellous stayer’s greatest traits has been his longevity and durability to withstand a series of big tests through his campaigns, and that came to the fore on the final week of the season. After defeat in the Cheltenham Gold Cup, he roared back to life with a 22-length hammering of Spillane’s Tower and co in a four-runner Punchestown Gold Cup.
While it might sound strange to say, the Punchestown Festival was also probably the first time that metronomic two-mile hurdling ace State Man properly got the credit he deserved in his career.
After an agonising final-flight exit in the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham when clear in front, he put that blip behind him when delivering one of his most comprehensive displays ever in the Punchestown equivalent. The Grade 1 was billed as a showdown with Constitution Hill and Cheltenham champion Golden Ace, but Nicky Henderson’s fallen star never looked himself and Jeremy Scott’s admirable mare gave gallant chase without success in second.
All in all, Mullins captured six of the eight Grade 1s on the menu at the 2025 Dublin Racing Festival, both Grade 1s at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival and nine of the 12 top-level contests at the Punchestown Festival. It remains a stunning era for Irish National Hunt racing to have such a surreal standard-setter raising the game to new heights for everyone. It has the feel of an era that will go down in the history books long after we have all gone.
There were a series of records set domestically a season earlier, and Mullins’ totals did not quite reach the same levels this time. Having achieved his highest ever prize money tallies of €7,299,665 and €7,003,605 in the two previous seasons, his Irish earnings came to €5,972,265 in 2024/’25.
The 69-year-old broke into never-before-seen winner counts in the past two seasons, visiting the winner’s enclosure with 237 and 257 runners in those campaigns, but he came back to a still impressive 203 winners in the season just gone (matching the total he achieved in 2021/’22).
It is another compliment to his team that stable rider Paul Townend won his seventh jockeys’ title in 2024/’25, son, assistant trainer and stable amateur Patrick Mullins secured his 17th amateur championship, and another important qualified rider in the operation, Jody Townend, secured her fifth female amateur title.
Mullins-trained performers like Fact To File, Majborough, Irancy and Dinoblue did their bit to help J.P. McManus to his 22nd champion owner honour too.
AFTER a frustrating enough spring at the major festivals, the tide has very much turned for Gordon Elliott into the second half of 2025 - and there are definite greenshoots in his team for the future.
He still finished just over €2 million behind Willie Mullins when second in the 2024/’25 trainers’ title, so a near €700,000 lead over the colossus from Closutton right now doesn’t mean he’s primed just yet to cause a title scare. However, there is no doubt that things are building back in the right direction for Elliott after a series of setbacks in recent seasons.
As well as a cracking feat to pull off a five-timer at Far Hills from six runners, he saddled more winners than anyone else at the Galway Festival - including a famous Plate-Hurdle double - and he followed that up with a steady stream of graded and valuable handicap winners before the winter season proper took shape.
It feels like each of the major winter weekends so far have had a strong Cullentra influence.
There were seven Elliott winners across the two days he so often dominates at Down Royal in October/November, six more went on the board at the Navan Racing Festival, and an across-the-card Saturday five-timer between Ascot and the Punchestown Premiere Weekend was followed by another double on the Sunday.
The Fairyhouse Winter Festival was another Elliott boon. A day-one double was backed up with a clean sweep of the four non-handicap graded races on day two, including Grade 1 rewards for Teahupoo and Romeo Coolio.
Even on a weekend of decent action at Navan and Cork earlier this month, Elliott hit a treble at his local course (featuring two valuable listed handicaps) and a four-timer at the Munster track (including Grade 2 successes for Found A Fifty and Kala Conti). There were two more trebles in the space of three days before Christmas at Fairyhouse and Naas to boot.
The 47-year-old has openly said that he does not have the Grade 1 horses to match his biggest rival right now, and it will take even more work now to challenge for a title than was the case when he got closest previously, but there are definitely encouraging signs for the Co Meath team through the second half of 2025.
HE may not have been honoured with a prize at this year’s Horse Racing Ireland Awards, but 2025 goes down as yet another year that saw Gavin Cromwell reach new levels of achievement.
Inothewayurthinkin’s Cheltenham Gold Cup triumph earlier this spring is clearly a career highlight for the dual-purpose trainer, but even a month earlier there was a significant success for the 51-year-old.
Hello Neighbour’s win at the Dublin Racing Festival represented a first in over four years at Grade 1 level for Cromwell, illustrating just how difficult it is to crack the top table in this country.
He emerged from the weekend with a hat-trick, courtesy of valuable handicap wins through Perceval Legallois and Backtonormal.
The man who became the first Irish trainer to land the Velka Pardubicka this year with Stumptown rounded off the 2024/’25 National Hunt season with a domestic haul of 84 winners - a clear step forward from what had been a record for him 12 months earlier of 72 (also up on 58 from a season before then).
That continued progress has also been reflected in his Irish prize money takings: €972,680 in 2022/’23, €1,315,085 in 2023/’24 and €2,008,275 in 2024/’25.
Along similar lines, Keith Donoghue, who rode his first winner back in 2009, set a new career-best for winners in a single Irish season in the campaign just gone. The trajectory of his journey as a rider is only going one way, especially when you consider he has gone from Irish seasonal tallies of 12, 17, 6, 35, 25 and 48 before breaking into 61 and 63 in the last two campaigns.
21 Willie Mullins
7 Gordon Elliott
3 Joseph O’Brien
1 Barry Connell, Henry de Bromhead, Gavin Cromwell, Nicky Henderson
SO often the lack of British participation in major Irish National Hunt races has been bemoaned in recent times, yet there were some excellent returns for those who dared to cross the Irish Sea in 2025.
There was no better example of that than Rebecca Curtis, whose Haiti Couleurs reigned supreme in the €500,000 Irish Grand National. On the same weekend, the proud Welsh trainer sent four other horses to Fairyhouse and very nearly masterminded a valuable double when Andy Amo finished a close second in a €50,000 handicap hurdle. Hats off to her for having a crack.
Harry Derham, having secured a €100,000 handicap hurdle at the Fairyhouse Winter Festival earlier in the season, plotted a successful raid at the Punchestown Festival with Ascending Lark - one of eight British-trained winners at the meeting.
Henderson challenge
Nicky Henderson sent 14 runners to the Co Kildare finale and emerged with a double. Lulamba gained Triumph Hurdle compensation in Grade 1 company, while Jeriko Du Reponet led home Doddiethegreat in a 1-2 for the stable in a €50,000 handicap hurdle. Impose Toi scooped another €20,000 in prize money when runner-up in a final-day handicap.
Jonjo and A.J. O’Neill had Petit Tonnerre in top shape to capture a €50,000 handicap chase, Buy Some Time was a shock winner for Mike Smith in the €100,000 Albert Bartlett Triple Crown Series Final Handicap Hurdle, Warren Greatrex was rewarded with a €50,000 handicap chase victory for Bill Baxter, while David Pipe (Thanksforthehelp in the Adare Manor Opportunity Series Final) and Alan King (Baron Noir in Thursday’s bumper) made their presence felt on the scoresheet too.
From small numbers, the visitors took plenty of euros home with them and it would be perplexing if we don’t see another strong raiding party at the spring festivals again in 2026.
THERE is no getting away from the fact that the National Hunt scene in Ireland is dominated by a small number of stables when it comes to the premium horsepower.
Of the top 250 horses, according to Racing Post Ratings, in Ireland last season, 80 were trained by Willie Mullins (32%), 41 were with Gordon Elliott (16.4%), another 23 were in the care of Henry de Bromhead (9.2%) and Gavin Cromwell had 20 (8%). All told, it means that just four trainers were responsible for nearly two thirds (65.6%) of all the top National Hunt horses in Ireland last season.
Against that backdrop, trainers with strings of small and medium sizes deserve real credit for any prominent successes achieved in this country. One of the standout feats of the year in this regard came from Eoin McCarthy when a Ladies Day treble at Listowel brought up a sensational six-timer from his first 14 runners of the Listowel Harvest Festival. It was immaculate training from the locally-based handler.
Of a similar parish, Eric McNamara showed he could again pull a big-race rabbit out of the hat from another yard when French Dynamite plundered the J.T. McNamara Munster National at Limerick, while there was another popular Munster success in the Troytown Chase when Answer To Kayf struck for Terence O’Brien and John Shinnick.
Oscar’s Brother winning the Grade 2 Florida Pearl Novice Chase for Connor King and his extended family was quite the story. The fairytale now continues in the colours of J.P. McManus, with the smart stayer remaining in the Co Cork yard.
Shrewd outfits
Declan Queally had a year to remember with his growing track team, with a fair deal of quality infused. Ladbrokes’ initial refusal to honour a bet placed on two Queally-trained runners from the previous year caused plenty of consternation at the time, but stable lad Dylan Phelan was eventually paid out for his ambitious each-way double.
Trainer Andy Slattery went on a sizzling run in bumpers this summer. From 20 bumper runners between June 15th and October 7th, the shrewd Co Tipperary team won eight bumpers and had another eight finish in the first four. Marine Nationale proved there was no fluke about the style of his Cheltenham success when following up in Punchestown’s Champion Chase for Barry Connell and Sean Flanagan.
Vincent Halley proved that if you’re not in, you can’t win when stable flagbearer Senecia caused a 50/1 upset in the Grade 2 Webster Cup at Navan in March, while Harry Rogers’ dynamite veteran Lord Erskine rolled back the years to deliver a €100,000 handicap hurdle win over subsequent Galway Hurdle hero Helvic Dream at the Fairyhouse Easter Festival.
That was one of three victories under both codes for the 12-year-old this year, two of which came under Darragh O’Keeffe, who has started the season like a man possessed and is on 69 winners already (flying ahead of his previous best for an entire season of 62, with more than four months still to go). It has been a dream start to his role in the number-one spot in Henry de Bromhead’s yard following Rachael Blackmore’s shock retirement announcement in May.
On the topic of riders, it was flagged up in this edition of The Irish Field 12 months ago that Tiernan Power Roche was on his way to becoming one of the most improved riders in the country and was excellent value for his 7lb claim. He’s now down to 3lb and was crowned champion conditional rider come the end of the 2024/’25 season.
WE were treated to some exquisite displays during the course of 2025 in National Hunt racing, but it’s impossible for any review of the period to go without mention of the deeply-missed Michael O’Sullivan.
On a sporting level, his loss this year as one of the brightest young talents in the weighing room and a terrific ambassador for racing is keenly felt. However, it is the personal imprint he left on so many who were lucky enough to cross his path that is arguably the biggest legacy he leaves behind.
We are certainly thinking of his family, friends, colleagues and everyone close to him this Christmas.